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The Cranes By Peter Meinke Essay

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“The Cranes” by Peter Meinke is an incredibly romantic story about old couples’ relationship coming to an end. At first glance, the story seems to just be a remembrance of the romance between the two elderly people in the car, but after reading a bit closer, the story reveals more about the couples relationship. Meinke uses the whooping cranes along with some very precise language to symbolize how rare it is for a couple to have such long lasting love between one another.
“Its just that when my mouth opens, your eyes tend to close.”
“They do not!” she said. And began to laugh, but the laugh turned into a cough and he had to pat her on the back until she stopped. They leaned back in silence and looked toward the Gulf stretching out beyond …show more content…

The old couple, still full of laughter after decades of being together, sits in the car while looking over the gulf at the birds. Throughout the story, a “silence,” (193) keeps interrupting their conversation. This silence represents the deep thought about a serious matter that isn’t quite revealed in the story, but small details give us hints about what the silence really means. The couple brought an “object wrapped in a plaid towel,” (193), which we can assume to be a gun when the lady asks the man if he brought “something for your ears,” (194). Sadly, these details tell us that the old couple in the story came to the parking lot to commit suicide together. Although the couple is choosing to end their lives in such a tragic way, it is very romantic that they are ending their lives together because they would not be able to survive without one another. In “The Cranes,” Peter Meinke attempts to illustrate what love truly is by creating a connection between the old couple in the story and the whooping cranes. The rarity of the whooping cranes symbolizes the rarity of the couple and how there aren’t many people like them who stay together forever. It is sad that the couple decided to end their lives the way they did, but the fact that they did it in the way of love is what makes this story so

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